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It's been more than two years since this happened and nearly two years since this happened. For the record, they are, respectively, the most memorable moment and the most memorable game I've covered in my career.

They're also just history now. The Indiana-Kentucky series, long considered one of the best in college basketball, has been on ice since the 2011-12 season, when the Hoosiers and Wildcats met twice.

ESPN's Dick Vitale wants the series to continue. He's said so many times. Now, he's apparently trying to take matters into his own hands.

"I say it to all of you, that game has to happen," Vitale said during an interview at his home on Wednesday "Please put pressure. Write to (UK coach John) Calipari. Write to Tom Crean (of IU). Get it done. You fans deserve it. The players deserve it. All the people in the basketball community deserve it. There's no way shape or form that Kentucky and Indiana should not play. ...

Vitale said that he left long, passionate messages for both coaches, alternately encouraging and admonishing them to work out the scheduling impasse. In fact, Vitale wants to put an exclamation point on the series when the Wildcats and Hoosiers eventually play again by creating a cause:

He wants the game to generate $250,000 for a grant in his battle against pediatric cancer. If anybody can make that happen, Dick Vitale can make that happen.

Bozich's article talks again about the impasse between the two sides -- IU favors games on campus, while Kentucky wants to revert to the old neutral-site format.

A few attempts at compromise failed in the spring of 2012.

For what it's worth, every indication I've gotten from Indiana's side suggests there's no reconciliation on the horizon, and I don't think this development changes that.

But the game clearly isn't fading from the national discussion anytime soon, either. Not so long as Vitale is around, it seems.